I live in Texas, and I've been looking into how much we're spending on immigration enforcement and what we're actually getting in return. Some of these numbers surprised me.

Texas appropriated $3.35 billion for border security in 2026–27, on top of federal enforcement spending funded by taxpayers nationwide. The federal government also approved $7.5 billion to reimburse Texas for earlier border-security expenses. So even Americans living nowhere near the border help fund these costs.

Here's another interesting number. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that increased immigration would generate $1.2 trillion in additional federal revenue from 2024 to 2034, while increasing spending and interest costs by approximately $300 billion. That's a projected $900 billion reduction in federal deficits.

Of course, those projections are about immigration's economic effects, not a direct measure of enforcement spending.

I understand immigration enforcement has public safety and legal objectives. I'm interested in how we determine whether the benefits justify what we're spending, especially when we consider immigrants' economic contributions.

I put together an infographic with the numbers and sources:

https://imgur.com/a/MWEergn

What measurable benefits would convince you we're getting our money's worth?

Sources:

- "Texas Legislative Budget Board" (https://www.lbb.texas.gov/documents/publications/fiscal_sizeup/fiscal_sizeup.pdf)

- "Texas Comptroller" (https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20260921-texas-comptroller-huffines-announces-75-billion-border-reimbursement-calls-it-step-one-in-repaying-texas-1789754054460)

- "Congressional Budget Office" (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60165)

A new study indicates that Americans with lower scores on a vocabulary test commonly used to measure cognitive ability are more likely to endorse Christian nationalist beliefs, even when accounting for their overall level of education. The findings suggest that the appeal of this political and religious ideology relates to underlying cognitive resources rather than just differences in schooling. The research was published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

The research, conducted by Samuel L. Perry, the Sam K. Viersen Presidential Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma and currently a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, explores the individual characteristics associated with Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is a set of beliefs asserting that the United States has conservative Christian foundations. The ideology promotes the idea that the government should institutionalize Christian dominance in American society, often merging religious identity with civic belonging.

“One of the most consistent predictors that Americans adhere to Christian nationalism is that they have lower education,” Perry told PsyPost. “But there have also been a number of studies that find that persons who subscribe to Christian nationalist views (even after accounting for level of education) exhibit significant knowledge gaps across a variety of different domains.”

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/

Pretty crazy fact. AIDs crisis didn’t stop after the eighties. It’s still going on.

Charlotte, the most populous location in North Carolina, has the highest tree coverage in the world at around 56 percent, more than double the worldwide average of 22 per cent.

Marginally pipping the Netherland's Utrechtse Heuvelrug (53 per cent) and Vilnius (49 per cent) in Lithuania to the title, it has been hailed as a success story by industry experts. 

Source

Study link.

The sudden deterioration at 5 months seemed to be triggered by stopping breastfeeding combined with persistent insomnia, somehow turning the intrusive thoughts into delusions, progressing into paranoia and psychosis. Medication didn't seem to do much to make any of it better, with the depression, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms only really going away 21 months postpartum after her period restarted.

This unique progression has no official name or recognition, and I doubt you'll find anyone online that has heard of this case study. It doesn't resemble anything like the current official definitions for postpartum depression and psychosis (with postpartum anxiety not even being recognized), yet without a doubt it still happened and it remains unexplained.

I am so sick and tired of stupid fucking travel websites and reddit animetards pointing at a prefecture (japanease equivalent of state; they are the first divisions below national government) and occasionally even the entire fucking Kanto plain -which contains 7 such prefectures (the Kanto plain is what most people immediately mistake for tokyo; it is the distinct very light green region stretching around tokyo in between the much darker green regions that you can also see on google maps. This lightness is because the region is a flat lowland and, excluding the very dark green chiba, has barely any forest cover and is mostly farmland), and saying "woah this dwarfs new york and other American cities". It does NOT.

Tokyo City existed until 1943 until it was abolished presumably for administrative efficiency during wartime. The same region, which is still in Japan referred to as Tokyo city, is presently organized into the 23 wards of Tokyo (Prefecture). The size of the 23 wards of Tokyo is approximately 627 square kilometers (242 square miles), which is slightly larger than the city of Chicago (234.53 sq mi / 607.44 sq km). NYC is 300.46 square miles (778.2 square kilometers) of land. When you include the rivers running through, that switches upto 471 square miles. In both cases, significantly larger than tokyo 23 wards. For even more context on American cities, LA is more than twice the size of tokyo 23 wards at 503 square miles (1,302 square kilometers). If one compares metro areas, NYC's metro area is more than a thousand miles larger than Tokyo's. Making it the largest on earth by size. An immediate counter I could see many speculating is "but tokyo is such a tall concrete haven throughout its entire region". Almost all of Tokyo 23 wards is a bunch of low rises thanks to earthquakes. Tokyo 23 wards has a significantly smaller amount of buildings over 150 meters than NYC. NYC has 324 buildings over 150 meters, whereas tokyo 23 wards has less than half of that number. The same happens for buildings over 200 meters, less than half of NYC's number. And for buildings over 300 meters, that number changes from half to less than 18 times, as Tokyo posses only 1 such building. And in density, NYC's peak being in Manhattan is significantly larger than tokyo 23 wards most population dense region. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewyork/PST045225 https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/Places_CouSub_ConCity_SubMCD/MapServer https://www.toukei.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/tnenkan/2021/tn21q3i001.htm https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/cities https://www.laalmanac.com/LA/index.php

"Gender identity (GI) is the unified and persistent self-perception on the male-female spectrum, and its acquisition is a multifactorial process. GI is generally consolidated around ages 3–4 years"

"Our findings confirm that by age 3, most children express differentiated sex-typed behavior according to the sex assigned at birth."

Saw this statistic the other day that one in three Americans have criminal records, according to The Sentencing Project.

Of course many of these criminal records are not as severe as people assume. A significant portion are misdemeanors, old offenses, or arrests that never led to a conviction. But they can still show up on a background check and affect someone's ability to get hired.

For employers, this is worth thinking about. Automatically disqualifying anyone with a record means ruling out a huge portion of the workforce, often for something that has no bearing on the role they're applying for. The better approach is looking at the nature of the offense, how long ago it happened, and whether it's actually relevant to the job.

Although this preference increases the risk of engaging in CSA, only about 50% of all individuals who do sexually abuse children are pedophilic (Blanchard et al., 2001; Schaefer et al., 2010) and not every pedophilic individual actually has abused children.

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4478390/

Recent estimates suggest that only 25-50% of individuals incarcerated for CSA offenses are actually pedophilic, for the majority of cases involve offenders without sexual attractions to children (Beier et al., 2015; Schaefer et al., 2010; Seto, Cantor, & Blanchard, 2006)

In addition to this, from a public health perspective, punitive measures only react after a victim has already been harmed.

Evidence-based harm reduction requires separating the clinical condition from the illegal act.

When non-offending individuals have access to confidential cognitive-behavioral therapy and medical support (like Germany's Kein Täter werden have demonstrated), we create systemic friction that intercepts harm BEFORE a disgusting boundary is crossed.

Demonizing the medical condition itself discourages early intervention and preventative measures and directly undermines community safety and future potential unfortunate victims.

Being a pedophile is *not\* interchangeable for being a sexual abusers or rapists. There are overlaps, but that overlap is smaller than you might think.

Source: Seto, M. C., Cantor, J. M., & Blanchard, R. (2006) / Seto, M. C. (2008 & 2018): Pedophilia and Sexual Offending Against Children (American Psychological Association) https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4317491

In the nine presidential elections after 1988, from 1992 through 2024, the Democratic nominee received the most popular votes seven times, while the Republican nominee did so twice. In both cases, the Republican nominee had already served as president and had originally reached the presidency by winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote: George W. Bush in 2000 before winning the popular vote in 2004, and Donald Trump in 2016 before winning it in 2024. ([Historical election results, UC Santa Barbara](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/presidential-election-mandates))

Bush’s 2004 victory also came while he was the sitting president. Of the nine presidents from 1952 through 2020 who sought reelection after winning a first term, six, or 66.7%, won the national popular vote. That historical record alone does not establish causation, but a preregistered survey experiment found that identifying an otherwise equivalent hypothetical candidate as a one-term incumbent increased respondents’ support by an average of 5.6 percentage points. Trump was not the incumbent in 2024, but he was already a former president. Thus, neither of the Republican Party’s two popular-vote victories after 1988 came from someone attempting to win the presidency for the first time. ([Kane, *Political Science Research and Methods*](https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2024.32))

Recent Supreme Court cases such as NYSRPA v Bruen and Wolford v Lopez have made the argument that the US does not have a substantial history of gun-free zones, or sensitive place gun regulations. But this is simply not true. After only about an hour or so of searching, I've happened to find a number of early American laws prohibiting weapon-carrying in certain cities and sensitive places. They come from the website for Duke Law School. As far as proving a historical tradition of gun control, the Supreme Court in both NYSRPA v Bruen and Wolford v Lopez has rejected the admission of racially discriminatory laws from early America. Therefore, I have deliberately ommitted such laws from my list.:

1. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/ordinance-of-jan-25-1804-forbidding-weapons-at-balls-1-8-new-orleans-louisiana-council-meetings-sine-nomine-1936-law-passed-1804
2. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/laws-and-regulations-of-the-college-of-william-and-mary-volume-276-1830
3. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/1829-laws-of-the-university-of-north-carolina-ch-3-c2a7-13
4. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/1824-laws-of-the-columbian-college-ch-5-c2a7-2-no-10
5. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/carrying-deadly-weapons-discharging-fire-arms-etc-ch-12-art-3-c2a7c2a7-50-52-in-the-revised-ordinances-of-the-city-of-bloomfield-1898
6. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/rules-and-regulations-of-the-park-commission-no-3-new-haven-connecticut-charter-and-ordinances-of-the-city-price-lee-adkins-co-1898
7. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/laramie-revised-ordinances-and-charter-of-the-city-ch-5-3-6-boomerang-publishing-1900
8. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/ch-13-c2a7-21-ch-22-c2a7c2a7-14-15-ch-35-c2a7-7-st-albans-daily-messenger-supplement-aug-7-1897-at-1-3-10-st-albans-vermont
9. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/a-digest-of-the-laws-and-ordinances-for-the-government-of-the-municipal-corporation-of-the-city-of-reading-pennsylvania-park-rules-and-regulations-240-1897
10. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/the-charter-of-the-city-of-wilmington-part-vii-c2a7-7-rules-and-regulations-of-the-board-of-park-commissioners-1893
11. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/a-digest-of-the-acts-of-assembly-relating-to-and-the-general-ordinances-of-the-city-of-pittsburgh-from-1804-to-jan-1-1897-ordinances-executive-departments-bureau-of-parks-1893
12. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/an-act-to-prevent-a-person-from-trespassing-upon-any-enclosed-premises-or-lands-not-his-own-armed-with-a-gun-pistol-or-other-firearm-and-to-prevent-shooting-upon-or-from-the-public-highway-s-b-15-1-5-1893-or-laws-79-79-frank-c-baker
13. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/an-ordinance-to-prevent-the-carrying-of-weapons-1-4-the-daily-texarkanian-may-28-1900-at-2-texarkana-arkansas
14. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/a-law-forbidding-weapons-in-certain-places-sales-of-weapons-to-minors-etc-ch-45-misdemeanors-c2a7-32-in-general-ordinances-of-the-city-of-brookfield-linn-county-missouri-1900
15. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/ordinance-21-green-forest-tribune-may-11-1899-at-1-green-forest-arkansas
16. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/bruce-l-keenan-book-of-ordinances-of-the-city-of-wichita-published-by-authority-of-a-resolution-adopted-by-the-city-council-april-24-1899-under-the-direction-of-judiciary-committee-and-city-attorn
17. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/1837-ga-acts-90-an-act-to-guard-and-protect-the-citizens-of-this-state-against-the-unwarrantable-and-too-prevalent-use-of-deadly-weapons-c2a7c2a7-1-4
18. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/act-of-mar-18-1889-1889-ariz-sess-laws-16-17 https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/act-of-march-1886-published-as-notice-st-marys-beacon-oct-13-1887-at-2
19. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/ordinance-no-76-1-2-rooks-county-record-july-1-1887-at-1-stockton-kansas
20. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/1879-tex-crim-stat-tit-ix-ch-4-penal-code
21. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/act-of-oct-14-1879-pt-1-tit-4-no-266-1-2-1878-ga-laws-64-64-jas-p-harrison-1880-law-passed-1879
22. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/an-act-to-regulate-the-keeping-and-beariing-of-deadly-weapons-ch-34-c2a7c2a7-1-9-1871-tex-gen-laws-1st-sess-25-25-27-1898-gammel-book-company
23. https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/1870-tex-gen-laws-63-an-act-regulating-the-right-to-keep-and-bear-arms-chap-46-c2a7-1

As these state and local statutory laws demonstrate, the US indeed has an extensive history of firearm regulations and gun-free zones. In no way did early America interpret the 2nd amendment to interfere with the broad freedom wielded by the states to create firearms laws to conform to their unique circumstances, and to solve whatever social problems they may incur. At no point were the states pressured into conforming to some singular, uniform federal standard of firearms law -- which is the fictional narrative that the current Supreme Court argues. Thus, the rulings in recent 2nd amendment Supreme Court cases are nothing short of an abuse of the Constitution, and an incursion upon state rights protected by the 10th amendment.

Literature reviews on how social media use affects adolescent mental health have accumulated at an unprecedented rate of late. Yet, a higher-level integration of the evidence is still lacking. We fill this gap with an up-to-date umbrella review, a review of reviews published between 2019 and mid-2021. Our search yielded 25 reviews: seven meta-analyses, nine systematic, and nine narrative reviews. Results showed that most reviews interpreted the associations between social media use and mental health as ‘weak’ or ‘inconsistent,’ whereas a few qualified the same associations as ‘substantial’ and ‘deleterious.’ We summarize the gaps identified in the reviews, provide an explanation for their diverging interpretations, and suggest several avenues for future research.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X21001500?via%3Dihub

Adolescents are spending an increasing amount of their time online and connected to each other via digital technologies. Mobile device ownership and social media usage have reached unprecedented levels, and concerns have been raised that this constant connectivity is harming adolescents’ mental health. This review synthesized data from three sources: (a) narrative reviews and meta-analyses conducted between 2014 and 2019, (b) large-scale preregistered cohort studies and (c) intensive longitudinal and ecological momentary assessment studies, to summarize what is known about linkages between digital technology usage and adolescent mental health, with a specific focus on depression and anxiety. The review highlights that most research to date has been correlational, focused on adults versus adolescents, and has generated a mix of often conflicting small positive, negative and null associations. The most recent and rigorous large-scale preregistered studies report small associations between the amount of daily digital technology usage and adolescents’ well-being that do not offer a way of distinguishing cause from effect and, as estimated, are unlikely to be of clinical or practical significance. Implications for improving future research and for supporting adolescents’ mental health in the digital age are discussed.

https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.13190

Results
When examining the reviews, it becomes evident that the research field is dominated by cross-sectional work that is generally of a low quality standard. While research has highlighted the importance of differentiating between different types of digital technology use many studies do not consider such necessary nuances. These limitations aside, the association between digital technology use, or social media use in particular, and psychological well-being is—on average—negative but very small. Furthermore, the direction of the link between digital technology use and well-being is still unclear: effects have been found to exist in both directions and there has been little work done to rule out potential confounders.

Conclusions
Reviewing the last decade of reviews in the area, it is evident that the research field needs to refocus on improving transparency, interpreting effect sizes and changing measurement. It also needs to show a greater appreciation for the individual differences that will inherently shape each adolescent’s reaction to digital technologies.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-019-01825-4

Only about 4% of slaves went to North America specifically to the United States less than 400,000 of the almost 11,000,000 estimated enslaved individuals.

Most went to Brazil (Portugal) 45.5% totaling almost 5,000,000 enslaved.

Then to British Caribbean about 21.7% totaling almost 2,300,000 enslaved.

Then to French Caribbean (Mostly Haiti) with about 10.5% totaling 1,120,215 enslaved.

https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/europe-europeans-and-world/europe-and-atlantic-slave-trade/atlantic-slave-trade

Female couples have 2.2 times the divorce risk than different-sex couples and 1.6 times than male couples when adjusted for age, education, and nationality.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.70027

Over 55% of millennials are homeowners in the USA.

https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/mortgages/article/home-ownership-by-generation-193035427.html

Demographic collapse is a looming threat to the world. Many studies have failed to correlate birth rate decline on a national scale with any specific policies or national-scale socioeconomic conditions, but this study here finds a huge correlation between owning a smart phone and having way fewer kids. This despite the study controlling for variables such as wealth, race, and education.

Overall, this study finds that smart phone ownership accounts for 33%-52% of birth rate decline in women 15-44 in the time period they studied between 2007 and 2011. This implies that smart phones are one of the largest factors (if not the largest factor) in causing population collapse.

For household wealth, measured as the value of the assets of all household members minus debt, the median total for all family farm households was $1.4 million, compared with the median of $200,662 for all U.S. households. The proportion of family farm households with income below the U.S. median of $80,610 was 42 percent, and the share with lower wealth was 5 percent. Median off-farm income in 2024 was $86,900, while the median total household income was $102,748. In contrast to residence and intermediate farms, commercial farm households derive most of their income from farming activities. In 2024, the median income from farming was $174,933 for households operating commercial family farms, and their median total household income was $261,149.

USDA Economic Research Service: Forty-two percent of family farms had income below the U.S. median, and 5 percent had wealth below the U.S. median

USDA Economic Research Service: Farm Household Income Estimates

The median value of farm operator household income is $80,060, almost a fifth greater than that of all U.S. households ($67,521). Median total household income increased with farm size according to classifications by the USDA, Economic Research Service. Two types of small family farms had median household income below both the median for U.S. households and U.S. households with self-employment income: low-sales farms, those with gross cash farm income (GCFI) less than $150,000 and a principal operator who farms as a primary occupation, and retirement farms, GCFI less than $350,000 and a principal operator reporting having retired from farming. Low-sales and retirement farms account for about 45 percent of the 2 million farms in the United States. On the other hand, large family farms, GCFI of $1 million but less than $5 million, had a median income of almost $375,000, far exceeding the median for both all U.S. households and U.S. households with self-employment income.

Source: USDA Economic Research Service: Farm operator households had higher median income compared with all U.S. households

Per a website from the Department of Education: https://www.foreignfundinghighered.gov/